Fine Fare Supermarkets
Owner: unknown
Owner: unknown
Opened: 1996
Previous Tenants: unknown
Cooperative: Retail Grocers Group
Location: 100 Somerset St, North Plainfield, NJ
Photographed: July 2020
This Fine Fare is our second of three here on Somerset Street in North Plainfield -- check out United Halal here and World Supermarket here. The store has been expanded since it opened, and we'll see at the far end of the store where the owners moved into a second storefront, bringing the total size from about 7600 square feet to 10,000.
It's quite possible that the store was originally a chain supermarket from the 1930s or so, though I couldn't definitively place it as any particular chain just by looking at it. Unfortunately, there aren't really any signs of a previous tenant inside either, although we do find a well-stocked and clean store with a lot to offer.
An extraordinarily crowded store, though. It was extremely busy when I visited. Produce takes up the right side of the first aisle and part of the second aisle in the island we see to the left.
Here's a look at produce from the other side. The back wall of the store has the butcher and packaged meats.
Service counter on the right side of the back wall, and packaged meat to the left.
Heading into the grocery aisles, it seems the first aisle I got a picture of was #4, which is nonfoods...
Aisle 5 is also nonfoods, which is quite a large selection for such a small store. I'm not entirely sure why, but this store feels like it could've been an A&P originally. Maybe it's the white brick on the outside?
Now my memory is a little fuzzy here, but I think dairy and frozen are here in aisle 7, then there's one more grocery aisle in the main supermarket. That would be aisle 8, beverages...
And from aisle 8, we have a doorway into the expansion (aisles 9 and 10) in the front...
...and another one in the back...
This expansion mostly holds international foods, with the bread section also over here. There's no deli or bakery here, just a butcher.
Kind of feels like a different store since it's so spacious compared to the main supermarket! Fewer people up this way too, which helps.
Nice and clean for sure! But unfortunately, we have to head back into the main store to leave via the very crowded front end...
That's all for this Fine Fare, and in a few days we'll be seeing this owner's second location in Plainfield just outside downtown. But for now, make sure to check out today's other two posts linked above, and tomorrow we return to Front Street in Plainfield for a greengrocer over on The Independent Edition!
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